The MUSTS for decorating your home

byMarie ColeonOctober 22, 2014

decorating your home – If you’ve just moved in to a new home, then the chances are that the decoration is not to your taste.

decorating your home – You’ve fallen in love with the overall look and feel of the house but you want to make your mark, transform the place, make it an expression of your own individuality. It’s time to redecorate.

Redecorating an entire room, let alone an entire house, is one of the most rewarding of all DIY jobs. So much so that the temptation to just rush in wielding a scraper or a brush and get stuck in can be all too overwhelming. But just hold fire for a moment. Before you proceed any further, it’s wise to carry out a thorough survey so that you can be prepared for the kind of structural and cleaning problems that can disrupt progress further down the line. When it comes to decorating, preparation is the key. The better prepared you are, the better the end result. Here are the major stages of preparation for a full redecorating programme, as shown in this video.

Survey the room Check the ceilings for leaks. These will show as brown stains. Look out for loose or cracking plasterboard and damaged decorative moulding. Check for dampness on the walls, especially around windows. Wood-chip or embossed wallpaper can conceal defective plaster. Remove lampshades and cover up fittings. Remove as much of the furniture as possible, or cover it up thoroughly.

Modifications Make a checklist of essential repairs, and carry them out strip the existing wall coverings, remove old paint if it is unsound and sand the stripped woodwork. Repair damaged plaster-work and fit new decorative mouldings if required.

Preliminary clean The next essential step once the room has been stripped of old wallpaper is the washing down stage. It may be barely noticeable, but old paint accumulates dirt and grease and this can easily discolour any new coat you try to apply. It can even prevent it from drying or, in extreme cases, cause it to lift off the surface and crack.

This is doubly true if you plan to paint walls which were formerly wallpapered. They will be covered with residue from the wallpaper paste, which needs to be removed. Even if you plan to wallpaper again you want a nice, smooth, clean surface to work with. Walls, ceilings and paintwork have to be cleaned, there’s no getting around it. You can scrub away with sugar soap and water, but why use all that elbow grease when a steam cleaner, such as a karcher one, will do the hard work for you in minutes? You may already have used steam to strip the wallpaper, so you know how effective it is.

Work in sections so that no part is missed, beginning at the top and working your way down in overlapping strokes. Avoid allowing the steam cleaner to sit in one spot for too long. Allow the room to air dry before the decorating process begins. Now you have clean and sanitised surfaces to work with. The worst part of the job is over and the fun bit is about to begin, so enjoy it! The hard work you’ve put into preparation is about to pay off.